Why
do those of us on the Yes side of the argument want to live in an
independent country?
It
really should be a big, fat Duh!
We just want to live in a better place.
So.
Better how?
I
mean being independent won't change the hills and the glens and the
valleys. The actual place will still be the same place and we will
still be the same bunch of people.
So
what we hope for is the chance to be better governed.
Again.
Duh.
I guess the thing is this. We've had partially devolved government
for twenty years now. Plenty of chance to prove we can make a better
fist of things when we are left to our own devices.
Of
course there a bunch of things we can wave at the doubters to make
our point. Free tuition, free care for the elderly, free
prescriptions....
Yeah,
yeah. It's a familiar enough list.
What
pisses me off is how hard we seem to find it to go beyond this list.
Basically I wish we could get a whole lot better at pointing out how
good, common sense policies make living in Scotland so much better
than living south of the border.
Maybe
this will put some flesh on the bones.
Yesterday
I called in to see Linda, our account, to drop off the First Base 2018/19
figures.
We
sat and chatted and she asked me couple of questions which were easy
for me to an answer. Why? Because I work in a food bank which means I get to see how things work at the bottom of the ladder.
A
friend of hers had been in Leeds for a couple of days and was rocked
by the sight of so many people making like twenty first century
Zombies care of smoking Spice. How come we don't see the same thing
up here?
How
come indeed?
As the manager of a food bank, the answer is easy enough to work
out.
If
you live in Scotland and your life hits the bricks, you have a
fighting chance of getting some help. Hitting the bricks more often
than not means finding yourself homeless. If you live in Scotland, you
can pitch up at the local homeless department and you are more than
likely to be given a bed for the night. Not always and things are far
from perfect. But most of the time it will happen and you get the
chance to make a start on putting your life back on track.
In
England things are very different. In England the answer is almost
certainly going to be an apologetic shrug of the shoulders. Sorry but
its all the cuts.... Maybe tomorrow.... and so the only show in town
is the cardboard box in a shop doorway option. It's a huge shock to
the system. And you find it hard to believe this has actually
happened.
Think
about it. Think about trying to fashion some warmth out of a few bits
of cardboard and a cheap and cheerful sleeping bag on a cold, wet
night in February.
A
nightmare, right?
Lonely,
terrifying and off the scales depressing.
As
the days drift by, you start to hook up with others in the same boat.
And you start to learn a few hard facts of your new life. Sure, you
can queue up at the homeless department every day but the answer will
always be the same.
Sorry,
but it's all the cuts... Maybe tomorrow. A groundhog day of ground
down misery. Now if you were a dog, then things would be a whole lot
different. But things for a human being in England 2019 ain't so
bright. George Orwell was way off the mark in this respect. It's four
legs good and two legs bad when it comes to being being granted a
warm place to sleep on a cold, wet February night in England 2019.
So
what happens next? Well your fellow shop doorway people will tell you
the key to getting a few hours kip on a cold, wet February night in
England 2019. It's called Spice. Cheap, cheerful and abundant, and a
decent dunt will sent you all the way into a world of black
nothingness. And it doesn't matter how wet and cold the February
night might get, it won't touch you. You don't even need cardboard.
All you need is a pavement to make like a corpse on. And if your luck
is in, you might wake up on a trolley in A&E.
Of
course the Spice honeymoon period doesn't last for very long. Soon
you'll be well and truly addicted and you mental health will be
melting away like a candle in a furnace.
And
even though it's cheap and cheerful, it still needs at least a
tenner a day to keep the demons at bay: to find the release of stone
cold unconsciousness.
And
you can't run to a tenner a day because you can't actually run to a
quid a day because your income is basically zero. You can't get
Universal Credit because you have no fixed abode and you have no access to a
computer and no working brain to spend 30 hours a week job seeking.
So
it's time learn to beg and steal. No point in even thinking of
borrowing. But you'll soon find out the hard way that Spice and
successful thieving are not natural bedfellows.
You'll
blow it and soon you'll be up in front of the local Magistrate who
will sent you down for a few weeks to learn your lesson.
And
at first this seems like a pretty good outcome. Prison means warmth
and a bed and a TV and a pool table and three square meals a day. You
know this because you read about in the Daily Mail in the time when
your life was still on the the tracks.
It
doesn't take so very long for the hard realities to reveal
themselves. Three to a cell on a 23 hour a day lockdown. Three human
beings that is. There is no cap on the numbers of rats and
cockroaches. The prison is a festering tinderbox where Spice and
violence go hand in hand. And every day feels like a month and every
week feels like a year and once again the only escape is the black
nothingness of Spice.
No
rehabilitation. No support. No nothing. Just weeks of dog eat
dog until the system dumps you back out on the street with a few quid
and nowhere to stay.
And
within a matter of months you have become just another Zombie figure
chained onto a dismal merry go round of shop doorways and short
sentences. And slowly but surely, your mental health will completely
disintegrate. And slowly but surely, your physical health will completely disintegrate.
This
is English policy.
Kick
people when they are down and kick them hard.
Most
of the time these things are done in the name of the god of
Austerity. Ever since the Tories took the reigns back in 2010 money, has been ripped out of he budgets for combating homelessness and
providing decent prisons.
The
same money has been taken away from our budgets up here in Scotland.
So why are there no rough sleepers here in Dumfries whilst almost
every doorway in Lancaster is home to a cardboard sleeper? On the
face of things, the two towns are pretty similar, sixty or so miles
apart as the crow flies. They are both administrative centres
surrounded by postcard worth countryside. By most measures, Lancaster
is richer. Houses certainly cost double what they cost here.
So
why are there no shop doorway people here and so many down there? Are
we spending a whole lot more cash? You would think we must be.
Surely?
Well,
actually, no we aren't.
Basically
we have one huge advantage over Lancaster. Our policies are designed
in Edinburgh, not Westminster. So why is this such a big deal? Are
our politicians so much smarter than their London counterparts?
Nope. Of course not. They do however have a huge advantage. They get
the chance to look at what works best and go down that road. They get
the chance to come up with policies which are based on research,
common sense and evidence. They get the chance to adopt policies
which are guaranteed to make dwindling public funds go further.
Here
are a couple of case studies.
SCOTLAND
A
guy's life goes to shit and he finds himself homeless. So he goes to
the homeless department and they find him a place to stay. He needs
emergency accommodation for a hundred days at £50 a night. Ouch.
£5000. A hundred days is enough to get our man onto benefits and
eventually into a place of his own where he can take a deep breath,
but things back together and eventually find himself a job and a
reasonably normal life.
Total
investment? Maybe £10,000 all in. Result? Eventually our guy becomes a net contributor. A bit of tax. A bit of National Insurance.
VAT when he goes shopping. Council tax. All the usual nuts and bolts.
ENGLAND
A
guy's life goes to shit and he finds himself homeless. He goes to the
homeless department only to be told there is no chance. The cuts and
all that. So he becomes a Spice smoking, cardboard box guy. And after
a hundred days he hasn't cost the State a single penny.
So.
Result! Austerity rocks
But
slowly but surely he starts to get expensive. Picked up by the cops
for stealing. £200. Overnight custody £200. Legal Aid. £400. Court
costs £500. Two months in jail. £10,000. Back to the streets and
flat out monged on Spice. A trip to A&E in an ambulance. £500.
Overnight in hospital £500.
Picked
up and locked up again. £15,000.
Seriously
ill enough for three weeks in hospital £10,000
And
one and on and on it goes. Chronically depressed, Spice smoking, cardboard box guys cost a living fortune. Tens of thousands a year
until they finally become ill enough to die.
So
why on earth would the English government be so utterly stupid? Why
would anyone in their right mind choose to spent over £100,000 on a
broken citizen when all the evidence shows £10,000 is more than enough
to turn a broken citizen into a productive tax paying citizen.
I
don't pretend to know the answer for to know such a thing would mean
getting inside the head of a Tory which isn't a thing I find easy to
do.
Maybe
there are a couple of key differences.
Many
of the so called services south of the border have been privatised –
prisons, probation etc. And once things get privatised, the money
doesn't seem to go very far. Endless millions seem to disappear
through the cracks only to miraculously re-emerge in the British
Virgin Isles.
The
other big difference is the fact that our policy makers have the luxury
of choosing solutions which actually work rather than policies
demanded by the Daily Mail.
Prison
is the perfect example. The Scottish government has told our Sherrifs
only to bang someone up if they are going to serve at least a year
inside. This means our prisons are not overcrowded. Which means we
don't have to lock cons up for 23 hours a day. Which means we don't
have to keep stumping up million of pounds to repair riot damage.
Which means we can put more effort into rehab programmes. Which means
there are less re-offenders. Which means we have more cash to spend
on better probation workers. Which means there are less re-offenders.
Which means we are able to spend less.
Like
I said. Smart. Evidence based Common sense. Oh, and humane too.
You'd
think London might look enviously over the border and think we
wouldn't mind a bit of that.
Except
the Mail and the Sun and the Express and the Telegraph all say a loud, resounding NO to
this kind of thing. They demand a 'lock em up and throw away the key'
approch and to hell with how much money it costs. Just so long as the
Conservatory companies keep on buying advertising space, they'll keep
peddling crap to the bitter retired who buy their papers and vote for
a hard line approach.
Which
is why they have the appalling Priti Patel promising another 10,000
prison places.
Which
is why when London was in charge, Glasgow was the knife capital of
Europe. And why after twenty years of our running our own railroad, it is
nowhere close to the top of the league. We were able to stop doing
things the Daily Mail way and stuffing Barlinnie to bursting point
and instead treat knife crime as a health issue and slowly but surely
find a way to get a grip on it.
Smart.
Evidence based Common sense. Oh, and humane too.
Sounds
lie a pretty good way to do things, right?
Thank
Christ we don't do Tory governments and we seem to be able to make
policy without giving a second's thought to what the Daily Mail may or
may not think about it.